Message-ID: <19991124015659.AAA23550@jubilee.ns.sympatico.ca@LOCALNAME> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 18:39:09 -04 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca> Subject: Re: seeking stories To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Kelly - > ultimately we are all affected by what happens in Africa and must take
> personal responsibility for changing what we can.
Those in Africa should do the work in Africa; those on mailing lists should do the work of mailing lists. Isnt it time to quit deluding ourselves that these are the same thing? Nutrition and self-help and microfinance are entirely appropriate issues -- but so is listening and learning and *taking responsibility* for understanding where some total stranger is coming from.
If even we (the e-elite, you know!) cannot cope with that 'trivial task' here, every day, every message, as a part of our vaunted global 'connectivity,' is it any surprise that those who go out to 'really' help someone, be they black, white, Aftican, X, Y, Z, have a hard time seeing past their own point of view? If even we *routinely and normatively* fail that responsibility by taking 'communication' for granted -- by supposing that all one needs to do is provide (or challenge) 'the facts,' by ignoring what the other knows, and by aborting any possibility of *working on relationships -- what is left? Its not a hard thought experiment: the result is militarization and authoritarianism, imperialism and exploitation *in the field and on the list.*
Have your righteous indignation, your two bits of cyber-fame - but dont, please, imagine that *reactivity is any kind of responsibility -- or that it changes anything.
kerry